"I don't know what else to do, I don't know how else to get through
this, so I'm just going to throw love at it. I'm just going to throw
love at it with both hands."
I always viewed heartbreak as something that someone had to endure and get over by leaving it behind. I thought of it as some crippling experience which left people jaded. The past year and few months has taught me something quite different. So, here's another practice in vulnerability.
Over the past year plus, I have discovered that heartbreak comes in many different forms. After a family friend took her own life, I felt it in anger and sadness from the loss of such a wonderful person. A few weeks later, my heart broke a little more when cancer took a high school friend. I revisited a different kind of heartbreak after losing touch with my dad for six months. And then I was introduced to a breakup that I feared would leave me jaded. I struggled with being vulnerable and fought the urge to shut down and close myself off from the world. There were a couple of days were I even tried to hide from others. This proves difficult when you are in school to become a counselor. How could I shut down when I was about to help others open up? Not to mention, I was surrounded by other counseling students. They don't let you hide. So, I had no choice but to let those emotions stay on the surface. And through the pain I learned something that I wasn't able to articulate until my mom sent me an e-mail the other day. It was sent to her by the brother of our family friend that we lost last year, and in it he addresses a book, "The Wisdom of a Broken Heart." Yea, I would have laughed at this a few months ago...or run screaming in the opposite direction...but now, I find myself nodding my head in agreement. Here's why.
By losing so many important people, I also lost major outlets for the love I was giving. I felt rejected and overwhelmed with an emotion that I was used to giving to others. I wanted to get rid of it, but realized that by doing so I would become that jaded person I feared. So, I began to give some of that love to myself. I filled my broken heart with the love I had given to others. And once those cracks began to stabilize, I turned this love towards others in my life. I fought the fear of rejection and gave to others what I wanted back in the world. The e-mail included another quote from the book that may help explain things, "In Buddhism, there is an emphasis on the broken heart as an attribute of a spiritual warrior, not as a problem or token of personal shame, but as a state of power, spiritual progress, openness and tenderness." By keeping my heart open to give and receive I am allowing this progress to occur. I practice random acts of kindness with my friends and family, I have picked up activities that allow me to take care of myself, and I am choosing to embrace my fears. I am taking those fears and throwing love at them. Rather than walk away from those I care about because I don't want to get hurt, I am giving them love and compassion. And if I do get hurt, the past year has shown me that I will come through on the other side...I will even be a little bit stronger.So let me leave you with this final quote from the e-mail.
"When your heart is broken, the only thing that matters is love."
